Funding:

• • Department of Transportation/Federal Railroad Administration 

  • Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway (in-kind)

Collaborators:

• • Prof. Chia-Ming Uang, UCSD

  • Volpe National Transportation Center

Purpose:

To enable the study of thermal loads in rails under controlled laboratory settings. 

Synopsis:

A large-scale Test Facility for the study of thermal stresses and buckling of rails was constructed under FRA funding with in-kind material donation by BNSF. The setup is hosted at UCSD’s Powell Structural Laboratories, the largest laboratories in the country for large-scale structural testing. The test-bed features a 70 ft-long, full rail track with ballast and wood ties, pretensioned to obtain a desired value of Neutral Temperature. Controlled heating of the rail is achieved through a specially designed rail switch heating wire.

This unique facility allows to impose thermal cycles to the rail in a controlled laboratory environment. In addition, the set-up allows to set different levels of Neutral Temperature to the test track. The facility is being primarily used by UCSD researchers  on their quest to develop a tool for non-destructive measurement of the rail Neutral Temperature (Rail-NT system, Hole-drilling technique, EMI technique). Other researchers funded by the FRA have also tested their technologies at the UCSD facility, including groups from the University of Nebraska and the University of Pittsburgh.